Witch Trial by Harriet Tyce review: 'a sensational page-turner'
Traitors contestant Harriet Tyce demonstrates spectacular storytelling skill in her new thriller, writes Joyce McMillan
Harriet Tyce is probably now best known as the writer who appeared as one of the “faithful” in the most recent series of The Traitors. In real life, though – if that distinction still exists – she is a former barrister who practised in England for ten years before she switched to writing, eventually becoming the author of a series of successful psychological thrillers, the first of which – Blood Orange, published in 2019 – became a popular lockdown hit.
They say that to be a barrister, or in Scotland an advocate, is in some ways to be a storyteller. The job involves creating a narrative around the available evidence that will convince a judge and jury; and Tyce certainly demonstrates a spectacular level of storytelling skill in her fifth novel Witch Trial, a psychological thriller set in Edinburgh, where Tyce grew up as the daughter of a senior judge.
Witch Trial is a contemporary courtroom drama with spectacular additional scenes, and involves a murder trial in which two girls, students at a leading Edinburgh private school, are accused of frightening one of their friends to death near the Inverleith Park allotments, through a series of terrifying rituals and beliefs involving witchcraft, tarot cards, ouija boards, and the summoning of demons.
The action, though, is presented entirely from the perspective of our unlovely hero Matthew, a successful and arrogant heart surgeon experiencing a midlife meltdown through a combination of stress at work, and the gradual breakdown of his marriage. When a call to jury service arrives, Matthew – in flight from his life – finds himself desperate to be selected; and is soon, with his 14 fellow jurors, sitting in judgment on the accused, Eliza and Isobel – one blonde, pretty and appealing, the other a surly goth with piercings and acne.
Matthew prides himself on being a rational man of science; but as the case evolves, he is ever more disturbed by hallucinations and visions, notably of the demonic figures the girls claim to have conjured up. The narrative ducks and dives through the trial, highly technical and correct in its description of the court proceedings, luridly vivid in is evocation the girls’ devoutly held supernatural beliefs, of Matthew’s visions, and of his deteriorating mental and physical state.
It also – not least through Matthew’s growing obsession with a blonde woman writer also attending the trial – raises some interesting questions about just how difficult it is, in an age rich in information and disinformation, for jurors to obey the old rules about avoiding accounts of the case beyond what they hear in the court. And for fans of Scottish literature, the story involves strong echoes of that great Scottish novel of demonic possession, James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; like Hogg, Tyce sets vital parts of the action on Arthur’s Seat, and Matthew’s mysterious courtroom blonde coolly tells him she is called Gill Martin, the very name of Hogg’s plausible devil.
Whether all this really amounts to a hill of beans, in the end, is hard to say; it’s no spoiler to note that Tyce finally comes down on the side of reason, medicine and science, although the vividness of her descriptions of the supernatural and demonic suggest a lingering fascination with the dark side.
What’s certain, though, is that in Witch Trial, Tyce delivers a sensational page-turner of a story, which holds the interest even in its daftest moments, not least through its strong characterisation of the two girls and their vulnerable victim. Why, in a world so full of real horrors, the rising generation so often feel the need to add to them with bloody and frightening forms of supernatural soliciting, remains a mystery of our times.
Tyce, though, plunges into the moment with a skill, wit and energy that is hugely enjoyable; and keeps us engaged from her shocking opening scene in an Inverleith potting shed, through to a breathlessly plot-twisting and meta-fictional finale, as deftly achieved as it is unpredictable.
Witch Trial, by Harriet Tyce, Wildfire, £18.99
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